The present invention relates to a dot-matrix printer with a font cartridge which reads out character pattern data stored in advance in a memory mounted in the font cartridge, and prints in accordance with the character pattern data.
In order to print a plurality of types of font of characters, dot-matrix printers must have a read-only memory (ROM) storing character pattern data of each font. However, different fonts are usually used in different countries. For this reason, when dot-matrix printers mount a ROM storing character pattern data for each country, a ROM having a considerable memory capacity is required, resulting in high cost. In order to overcome such a drawback, a plurality of font cartridges mounting ROMs or random-access memories (RAMs) storing a plurality of font of character pattern data are prepared, and the desired font cartridge is mounted on the dot-matrix printer so as to read out character pattern data of a desired font for printing. However, with this method, when the font cartridge is mounted on the dot-matrix printer, a control circuit of the printer cannot recognize in which address area of the font cartridge a memory is mounted, or whether a ROM or a RAM is mounted. Therefore, it requires a complex operation and extra time for this recognition.